Honestly

One of the most efficient ways to pay yourself a gross disservice is to set yourself up, in the blogosphere or anywhere else, as a funny person, or worse, gloss yourself as insightful. The best results are from mere honesty. Just be honest. It really is our only hope.

The problem for some--and by some I mean me--is that honesty does not come easy. Because we are, deep in the heart of our bottom, horrible people. Cruel, judgmental, acerbic, ultrasexual obsessive compulsive, passive aggressive jerks. There isn't a positive gloss to slather over that particular set of traits. So it just doesn't occur, as often as it should, to simply speak the simple truth.

Like at my good friend K-Diggity's birthday party. There was drunkenness, and I don't drink, so I started to get that old high school feeling. The one I got when I realized that M*A*S*H, (the show to which I had dedicated my early years), had betrayed me. Because of the 4077th's flashy, hilarious portrayal of drinking people (who I had only ever seen on TV), I was ill prepared for the rather off-putting realization that drunk people are, in fact, loud, obnoxious, sloppily affectionate blowhards. By the time the bacchanal migrated to the backyard pool, I was on the couch playing a hand held Yahtzee game. (Supplemental honesty: this is what a huge nerd I am. No matter what the occasion, my fervent hope is that a word game will break out.)

So there I was on the couch, when chatter on the deck indicated that the pool contingent had exercised the Naked Option. Being on the verge of a large straight, I was content to listen to the commentary of the deck observers. Did I mention this was K-Diggity's 40th birthday? It therefore rankled one of the middle aged women present when birthday girl exited the pool in her birthday suit. "Just look at her little 20 year-old body. Don't you just hate her?" It was one of those catty, back handed insult/compliments that women pay each other every day. I've learned, like everyone else who wants to retain their sanity, to tune out that crap. But she chose to repeat the comment, almost as if she wanted someone to respond. I'd had enough: the bile rose to the top of my throat; I put down the game and prepared to give into the urge to charge out onto the deck, point my honest finger into her displayed, artificially tanned cleavage and say:

"You can shut your fat middle aged mouth. You act like she woke up one day and found that body in her closet, or won it in some raffle. You know what? She works hard. She mountain bikes twice a week. She runs. She goes to the gym. She watches what she eats. If you have to comment, why not just admit to how jealous you are, or lament how your sloth and the subsequent fat on your hips depresses you, or better yet, congratulate her for the way her HARD WORK has paid off and emulate her example? It's either that or shut it, Chubby. Because I CAN'T TAKE IT ANY MORE!"

I was so close. But in the end, I was too cowardly, too entrenched in the old high school exclusion-by-sobriety, to muster up the honesty. I realize now that my silence constituted tacit approval of her comments.

Sorry everybody. I know honesty is the best policy. I'm working on it.